Since the second World War there has occurred in this country and throughout the world a widespread increase in the public's awareness of the art of photograhy. In more recent years there has been a great proliferation of sales of inexpensive cameras using film cartridges as well as an increased sales of higher quality 35 mm cameras. The proliferation of cameras has spawned a proliferation of flash devices for taking pictures in otherwise insufficient lighting conditions. These flash devices have included both those using expendable flashbulbs and those using reusable flash tubes.
Conventional flash tube flash attachments use a charged capacitor as the power source to drive the flash tube upon ignition. Conventionally, a charging circuit will operate from a low voltage battery which drives an oscillator which in turn drives a transformer to raise the voltage which is then rectified and used to charge the firing capacitor.
Conventional flash attachments using reusable flash tubes comprises a means for attaching, both physically and electrically, the attachment to the camera in question; a body which includes the circuitry for charging the firing capacitor; and a flash head which houses the flash tube and an appropriate reflector.
As is known to those skilled in the art of photography the taking of a picture with a conventional flash light source creates certain problems which must be compromised when a flash is to be used with a portable hand held camera.
In order to minimize the effects of shadows it is desirable to have multiple flashes aimed at the subject from different directions so that the centers of the illuminated areas tend to intersect near the subject. Conventionally this is possible only with equipment in a fixed location such as that in a photograph's studio.
In the use of portable hand held cameras with a flash attachment mounted directly on the camera, it has been possible to hold the camera steady using both hands, but this has necessitated rather direct lighting which causes problems with both shadows in the picture and eye redness of human and animal subjects. As is known to those skilled in the art of photography the problem of eye redness from a direct flash occurs when light from the flash is reflected directly off of the retina of the subject and back into the camera lens.
It has been known to provide a flash attachment which includes a rotatable flash head for using "bounce flash" techniques but this requires surfaces close to the subject of relatively high reflectivity.
As a compromise in the use of flash equipment with hand held cameras, it has been known in the art to provide a detachable flash which is electrically connected to the camera body via a cord that may be held in one hand while the camera proper is held in the other. This compromise tends to eliminate the problem of eye redness and to diminish the problem of shadows from direct illumination but makes it much more difficult for the user to steadily hold the camera since only one handis available for this task.